As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Today, information handling systems, such as servers and storage subsystems, use an increasing amount of power and resources. As computing and power requirements continue to increase, users are looking for ways to pack more computing power into smaller spaces while at the same time saving money, conserving energy, and having flexibility. For example, companies are migrating towards high density server applications or modular computing systems, such as blade servers and brick servers, instead of conventional U-sized servers (a U is a standard unit of measure for designating the height in computer enclosures and rack cabinets where 1U equals approximately 1.75 inches). The modular systems may include modular components such as blade servers, power supplies, cooling fans, disk drives and input/output (I/O) devices that can be easily installed in or removed from the system as individual modules.
Information handling systems that include multiple servers within a single server rack cabinet generally require additional cooling in order to account for the heat generated by the operation of the blade servers. Therefore, additional cooling fans or cooling fans having greater cooling capacity may be needed in order to prevent the servers from overheating due to the increased heat load of the processors in each of the servers. Because modular components may be easily installed in and removed from a server chassis, a user may not completely fill the chassis with the modular components, which results in the chassis having one or more empty sections. The empty sections adversely affect the cooling of the installed modular servers because air, like water, flows in the path of least resistance. For example, the majority of the cooling air flows in the empty sections and not through the installed modular servers when the cooling fans pull cooling air into the server chassis. Therefore, the installed modular servers do not receive adequate cooling and the operating temperature of one or more of the modular servers increases.
Each server in the information handling system may include one or more sensors that measure the operating temperature of the various devices in the server. The sensors typically are mounted on the circuit board adjacent to the devices and thus, depend on the air flowing over the devices to determine operating temperatures. However, in situations where the internal temperature of the devices rise above the ambient temperature in the system, such as when the airflow is altered by an empty section in the chassis, the sensor may report a temperature that is lower than the actual operating temperature of the devices. If the operating temperature continues to increase, the system may shut down without any warning to the users because the sensors are reporting lower temperatures. Furthermore, the overheating may result in system down time and less efficient operation.